We Are Monsters x Glass. Barons Court Theatre.

Writers and performers Joseph Ryan-Hughes and Connor McCrory seem to have a taste for works imbued with murderous intent and haunting gothic menace. Last November they starred in a likeable revival of Rob Hayes’ villainously dark modern fairy-tale, A Butcher of Distinction, also at the Barons Court Theatre. This year their writing skills are additionally on display in a double bill of new Halloween-themed comic horror pieces. McCrory’s slice of menace-laden Pinteresque absurdism Glass, overlong though it is, works rather better than Ryan-Hughes’ sub-par folk horror pastiche We Are Monsters.   

In Glass it is close to midnight on Halloween and Brody Jenkins’ (Connor McCrory in his trademark person-on-the-edge-of-a-breakdown acting mode) evening is not going well. His “ugly gunslinger” outfit has not impressed his bosses at the office fancy dress party – in fact he looks more like cowboy doll Woody from Disney’s movie franchise Toy Story than a scary Allhallows Eve icon.

Dispatched to his office on the 9^th floor to organise the party’s “cream and confetti” cannon Brody finds his desk telephone mysteriously ringing. On the line, apparently, is a random stranger whose train has broken down directly outside Brody’s office window. A Google search identifies Brody’s number and the stranger (also voiced by McCrory in a board Irish brogue) fancies a craic. There is a twist. The stranger, who insists on calling Brody either “son” or “daddy”, has a bomb in his briefcase which, were it to go off, would take the train and the office along with it. Just a couple of panes of glass stand between the anxious office worker, now in the midst of a full blown panic attack, and destruction.

What follows is a kind of exercise in tense psychological manipulation as both characters battle to gain the upper hand. As long hidden secrets emerge the power balance between the two constantly shifts. Anticipate confessions, bleak revelations, and a well-camouflaged twist-in-the-tail ending. McCrory’s writing is packed with enigmatic ambiguity and cryptic wit, and mostly manages to sustain an underlying sense of absurdist danger. That said, the piece meanders a little mid-way through and is at least ten minutes too long. Some judicious editing might be in order. Zach Wyatt, recently seen treading the boards in Ivo van Hove’s A Little Life, delivers an efficient and engaging directorial debut here.

Less satisfying is Ryan-Hughes’ shorter piece We Are Monsters. Rural prankster twenty-something Caitlyn (Laura Mugford who also creates the imaginative costumes) and her teen brother Kyle (Ryan-Hughes) have taken to dressing up as a pair of “drowned children”, whose ethereal presence supposedly haunts Lake Windermere. Their aim, aside from stealing electronics, baked beans, and tent pegs, is to scare the bejesus out of townie campers on lakeside holidays. Ghost-whisperer Wesley (Moses Alexander) who looks like “Ozzy Osbourne dragged backwards through a circus tent” and sees himself as the “helper, tool, hand and fist” of the local water demons, takes umbrage at the siblings’ lack of respect for the spirit world. Determined to do away with the impertinent duo, Welsey feeds them magic mushrooms and plots their demise. But Caitlyn and Kyle have powers of their own and the tables may soon be turned.

Despite a tremendous turn from Alexander as the ghoulish servant of the dark world, We Are Monsters cannot quite seem to decide if it is aiming for horror or broad comedy. It fails to convince at either endeavour.

Writers: Joseph Ryan-Hughes and Connor McCrory

Director: Zach Wyatt